Wow this site has changed. I just got my windows 7 disc's this week. Has anyone been able to do a clean install of 7 without installing vista first on a new hard drive?BTW its a upgrade disc. I read that you can but I figured I'd try cd first.

I had an upgrade disk when I installed, but I prepared a hdd early with a fresh installation of Vista, let it activate, but didn’t do anything else to it (no drivers, updates, etc.). Then I did a custom install with Win7 and formatted the disk in the install procedure to wipe out any trace of Vista. Works, but takes more time.

Sorry for the pm, I’ll make sure I remember that. It’s been a long time since I’ve been on so I was a little lost. I’ve been tring to convince my son it can be done. He’s got a associates degree in computer science and going to school for networking, but not one in windows 7 installs I guess. Thanks for the information.

PM? Maybe you are looking at the reminder in my signature that all technical questions belong in the forums. In that case, you haven’t done anything wrong…cause this thread is[B] in [/B]the Newbie forum where it belongs. Could have gone in the Software forum…either one would have worked.

I’ll tell you what, I wasn’t even sure I was in the right place. Name change, I typed CD Freaks in the browser and I thought I got re directed. I guess I haven’t been watching my emails close enough. My wife totaled my truck so I’ve been busy the last couple of months with a load of personal stuff.

But back to win7, It’s been a slow change for me. I purchased a lot of software and notebooks to switch os and sell. I got use to Vista Ultimate and it’s been running pretty good for me. In fact I purchased a few more copies of it and changed all the towers over to it except for one with xp pro. Speaking of which I downloaded a trial version of Fab and somehow it crashed my original program. I sent an email but haven’t gotten any responce. But I figured it’s time I purchased the latest version anyway.

I went win 7 x64 ultimate and so far so good. I wipe clean any leftover of XP on my HDD and now all that is on there is Win7. I am using it right now and took some adjusting to get use to the interface but now I can live with it. I think for what Win7 is worth a fresh clean install is the best way to go and just reinstall your older programs as they will run just fine in Win7 only those that can’t 7 will tell you it incompatiblity with 7. So now I look for programs that comes in x64 flavor first unless there is only x86 then I get that update. I did find some of my older hardware didn’t like 7 and vise versa so I had to toss the hardware…sighs oh well progress I guess. But to your Vista I say if you can go with a clean 7 install go for it. Plus the 7 should give you a option to delete all the HDD where vista before making it clean for a new 7 install. That how I did it with when I had xp and went to 7.

I bought a 500gb, 7200rpm hd for my notebook. I installed 7 without entering the keycode. Then I re installed it and then put in the key. I didn’t get a failed notice, so I activated it and ran wga, so I’m good. I wanted ultimate but where I was at, they were out. I ended up getting a couple of business editions [which I installed],32bit though because msi didn’t have 64bit drivers for my model. A few home premium and 2 - 3pack home premium. I figuered if I got business I’d have the xp mode, but from what your saying, it’s not all that. My son told me the upgrade version couldn’t be loaded without vista on the hd, so I’ll send him an email so he knows. One thing I noticed though was the cpu gadgit shows the memory at 1 gig, so it’s not as smooth as I thought it would be. I’ll have to talk to tech support at msi to see where the 64bit drivers are, I asked them about it last summer for my model and the guy I talked to said they had them but they don’t give support if I installed it. Well I’ll see how it goes, but anyway you look at it is it’s still microsoft.